New Road Map Published For Employment Tribunals

The coronavirus pandemic has had a serious impact on the running of the Employment Tribunals and the progress of cases in the system. Although some cases have still been heard, the majority of cases which were listed for hearing in April and May had their hearings converted to a telephone preliminary (case management) hearing to reorganise the case.

The Presidents of the Employment Tribunals have now published a new road map, setting out an outline of their plans over the next few months when it comes to the listing and hearing of various types of cases. This is quite a lengthy document, but can be summarised as follows.

Employment Tribunals new road map

Three categories of cases have been identified:

1. The short track – this refers to claims for unpaid money and the like, which are usually heard by an Employment Judge alone and are listed for one to two hours;
2. The standard track – this refers to claims of unfair dismissal, which are often heard by an Employment Judge alone and are usually listed for one to three days;
3. The open track – this refers to claims of discrimination, whistleblowing and the like, which are usually heard by an Employment Judge and two non-legal wing members and are usually listed for three days or more.

The road map is divided into four phases:

• June 2020 – certain hearings (mainly short track hearings where there is little or no disputed evidence) will start using the remote online Cloud Video Platform developed by the Ministry of Justice. Most standard and open track cases will not take place in June.
• July/August 2020 – certain standard track cases will be heard remotely using the Cloud Video Platform and some short track cases and preliminary hearings will begin to be heard in person at Tribunals. Tribunals expect to be ready to embrace social distancing measures by this point. It is very unlikely that any open track cases will be heard as very few wing members will have been trained in how to use the Cloud Video Platform at this point.
• September/October 2020 – Tribunals will begin to hear open track cases using the Cloud Video Platform, with a small number of in person hearings taking place and other hybrid in person/Cloud Video Platform hearings taking place where multiple persons are involved.
• November/December 2020 – this will be used as a period of review by the Tribunal.

The road map does state that the above are aspirations but are contingent on increased staff numbers and the resource available in the particular Employment Tribunal region that a case is listed to be heard in. When a case will be heard will also depend to an extent on the ability of the parties involved to use the electronic Cloud Video Platform and whether parties feel this is appropriate in their case. It is reported that, so far, many would prefer to wait to have their case heard than take part in a remote electronic hearing and that mediation is being encouraged/offered as an alternative. For those who have brought a claim that falls into the open track category, it is also possible that parties can opt to have the claim heard by an Employment Judge alone without wing members, which may result in this being heard sooner.

Many cases, particularly those due to commence on or before 26th June 2020, have already been postponed as a result of the pandemic. If your case is due to be heard after this date, it is possible (depending on the type of claim brought) that this may be heard on the original date as planned, for example electronically. Parties must therefore continue with case preparations.

Unfortunately, in relation to cases that have already been listed for 2021, the Tribunal have confirmed that it is possible that these cases may be pushed back even further to allow the backlog of cases that were due to be heard this year to be dealt with and heard first.